A diamond rich tiara with a spectacular history will go on display when V&A Museum of Design Dundee opens in the second half of 2018. The tiara, known as a Valkyrie tiara, was commissioned in 1935 by the late Mary Crewe-Milnes, Duchess of Roxburghe.
According to the museum, which will be the first design museum in the UK outside London, the piece was inspired by “the winged helmets worn by the heroines of Wagner’s opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen”, and it is the last of its type ever made by Cartier. The tiara has more than 2,500 cushion-shaped, single-cut, circular-cut and rose-cut diamonds, set in a gold and silver frame. The wings of the tiara can be detached and worn separately.
Joanna Norman, Lead Curator of the Scottish Design Galleries and Acting Head of Research at the V&A, said: “The tiara is an amazing piece which trembles when worn to give a sense of moving feathers. Designed to allow the Duchess to remove the wings and wear them as brooches if she so desired, the attention to detail is spectacular”.
